maybe taking a step back and making sure that this is something that we do that is the right something. i think in the aftermath of 9/11, people wanted do something because it was a very dramatic experience. americans were attacked and killed in large numbers on our soil, which is not something that americans are used to experiencing. and it was a terrible tragedy and the crime. but there were a lot of ideas as to how to cast foreign policy in response to 9/11, such as invading iraq and people were actually advocating this well before we had the 9/11 terrorist attacks. making regime change in iraq the official policy of federal government actually occurred during the clinton administration when the iraq liberation act was passed in 1998 and signed into law by president clinton and supported

by many republicans in congress. it had bipartisan support. vice president gore was a supporter, that is why i am not completely convinced that that is a counterfactual point. we have a lot of interest and people were casting around, trying to find solutions. and i do think the initialization of afghanistan was correct, whether that means we need to be there for 10 years or until afghanistan becomes connecticut, that is another matter entirely. but i think the initial strikes against those were necessary and just. but then to go out and pursue regime change, prior to 9/11, they simply casted in search of a solution to a problem with a little class saw. >> libertarianism was fiscally

conservative, so we will get back to the middle point. based on what he just said, during the bush years, bush-cheney, the focus was foreign policy. guantánamo bay, civil liberties, there is something that animated the hatred on the left. for the right, it wasn't specifically foreign policy and civil liberties. we have a president is that is not only largely continuing the same foreign policy as its predecessor, but expanding it in ways that the left would not accept. when bush was there, the patriot act, to put people away without due process. obama has said we can imprison american citizens. not just enemy combatants, but citizens. never any questions asked. how do you see with obama now doing bush on things with the continuation of undeclared wars, how do you see foreign policy from a liberal perspective

considering that obama has considered so many of his predecessors policies and expand on them. >> obama himself has not interpreted it as saying that we have the right to be maki said that we have the power, but i won't do it. >> i don't think that's quite accurate. it's a very vague sentence in the bill, it said any more power that is specifically about foreign terrorists, that they have the right to take american citizens willy-nilly indefinitely. having said that, there really isn't a singular liberal foreign policy. there are different strains in both parties and both ideologies. there are some people on the

left who are angry at obama for the things the state and the things that have to do with the extensions of bush. some don't see it that way. there's a big difference between obama's foreign policy and bush's foreign policy. the civil liberties, obama in the back, now, individual circumstances that are being pointed to, i don't think they have been verified yet. and that is that individuals may do bad things. no human rights organization is saying that that was ended. on the broader foreign policy question, i think it is a huge earth shattering difference that obama is on the side of bottom-up democracy in the

middle east in countries and countries, even when the dictators are allies. it is unheard of for an american president to push out an allied was a dictator because the people have turned on that person. >> tell that to ferdinand marcos >> with all due respect, i don't think that is true as well. >> you can jump in anytime. >> i don't think it was that across to turn on a dictator. >> an across-the-board policy of either administration. >> well, you had three years. dramatic circumstances in egypt and libya and tunisia.

they are working on syria. it is pretty difficult as flip a switch and change every country within a matter of days. part of the obama philosophy, which is interesting, it is trying to find what is possible in this area that does not get america caught in traps of unnecessary wars, replication of imperialism, and quagmire. so you have these two examples of egypt and libya which are most striking. and here you have people on the streets, clearly in opposition to the dictator there. for example, tiananmen square, bush junior and a crackdown there. around the 50s, of course, lots of examples where we tell

folks and we say if you want to crack down on us, that is the typical way it is going down. for president bush to go to hosni mubarak and say you can't stand aside, you're not going to keep this if you do it that way. because of that factor, one of the key factors are gotten pushed out, libya was a different story where he had a possibility of a massacre during an obama said, well, i would like to stop that from happening, very much so. but if i can get a true international coalition through the u.n., then i might not do it. i have to make sure that i'm actually going to have that. >> how about a true blue declaration of war or our own congress. even congressional authorization that bush had.

i am very afraid of what will take. and what is happening in the arab world is happening in the arab world, whether we like it or not. obama doesn't like it. hillary clinton doesn't like it. she argued to the last breath that you should not stab hosni mubarak in the back. when we finally got back to it, it was a done deal. it was not going to make any difference in egypt. as far as libya, at first it seemed like we got lucky and qadhafi went down easily, you know, in the last couple of weeks, think seemed to have turned around.

god only knows what's going to happen in syria. it's much more complex than iraq. we always say we are going to do this and that, the shiites, the police, the sunnis, the stuff, i can say that i spent a lot of time in that part of the world. it doesn't even make sense when you're there, let alone we are sitting back here and thinking bigger than sit there with your wrist for making it all work out. i was going to mention the humble foreign policy. you know, i'm still waiting for my country to rise up and live up the promise of that treaty. >> i think that is what i am talking about. the idea that it would even be desirable for us flip the switch and dictate clinical outcomes in foreign countries. you are dealing with multiple

political factions about which we have very limited knowledge about how to effect the outcome so we think that we want. how often we armed factions, give material support to factions, support individual people in government and outside of government, americans should be focused on the interests of the united states, because that is what we are most knowledgeable about. when we get into the idea that we will rebuild foreign countries about which we have limited knowledge, i think we are setting ourselves up for failures and disappointments. >> you're putting a lot of work putting a lot of work in obama's not on us. you are not talking about massive -- >> this is bipartisan criticism. >> fair enough. getting back to what you and him are talking about. the concern, part of the bush approach this was i was not a

supporter for that very reason. what is going on in libya is not that. it is not that at all. the opposition it covers, there is no picking and choosing on our part. we are not handpicking the leaders are. when the bush administration -- >> you say the same of barak. the government in iraq is not supposedly our best friend. >> it ended up that way. they failed in what they want to accomplish, but they tried pretty hard at first and included who they wanted there, and they couldn't pull it off. in this case, they purposely went with libya in this is happening in syria now were you

don't reflect the world of people. i'm not to put all my chips into the spirit we need a coalition of opposition in syria that is reflective of all the people. it is the pragmatics take into consideration. you know, you did not see the libyan people turn on us. they are on the streets and attacks are going to happen. we can't control human behavior. but that has actually happened in libya, which is very unusual remark okay, so would you have reported the iraq war if george w. bush had picked the right side. >> was a reason beyond,. >> it was very clear that the people of iraq want to overthrow their leader. and you had hoped to do it. and he went to the u.n. to get

that help. >> it was much more precarious situation. if you have a situation where the vast majority of the people and you had u.n. backing and there is no way it could be the u.s. alone, imperialistic attack to try to scoop up resources for yourself. >> hearing the talk, i have seen this movie before. saying that they will pick legitimate people within the country to do that -- tom friedman back it up, please. i saw. i saw the first time. you guys were all in school at the time. let's just let things happen the way they are going to happen. what other people worry about

their own country. we have not problems in this country. >> jim, did you have anything to say? >> yes, i do have one question i can ask, it was george w. bush who wanted to do the libyan intervention, would you have supported it then? >> yes. >> okay, let's do something related to military and foreign policy and that is the issue of military spending. many on the left criticize the right for wanting to spend on the military print mitt romney has proposed that we spend $2 trillion in additional spending. lots of things, wanting to balance a budget, the annual deficit runs between one and $1.5 billion annually. i will start with you, bill. even with obama and his foreign policy, spending keeps going up. >> some folks don't talk about this in a great way.

it is the kind of thing where most people -- [inaudible] you don't want to approach it strictly from a numbers basis. by the same token, throwing money at national security and problems it's not necessarily something that's going to solve the problem. >> unless you're ben bernanke. [laughter] does because it comes down the pipe -- [inaudible] right now we have a situation where the pentagon is saying that we don't need as much money as mitt romney is proposing. that it's not necessary, number one. they are not lugging the restraint, but there is a general attitude that we have to do more with less, let's put our heads together and figure out how to do that. a great panic that this is going

to make us a third-rate military. so right now it seems like there is room to cut where you can. they have a stake in the matter to tell you that this is a place than you can completely without jeopardizing america's ability to sponsor an attack and etc. >> so that is how you would start with the cuts? >> right now, yes. >> i will get jim's opinion on this, we are looking at the national debt and the greater strains on us economically. by and large without question, entitlement. the second would be foreign policy and so-called defense. would you agree that we need reform this as well, it is nothing that would save us money their? >> yeah, that's okay.

i think that there are two sides of the same equation. rand paul says that we cannot cut the debt or do something to address the deficits without looking at domestic spending and four in spending. that's how we will have to compromise. would you come up from the liberals perspectives they we need to do something with the entitlement system. maybe some way to save money. >> we have done that. obamacare is deficit reduction. it quantifies specifically because a lot of it is experimental. most folks who look at this thing the main drivers of deficit and debt is excessive health care spending. he doesn't deny your health care that you need. the obamacare plan is to try on a bunch of things and see what works the best. let's learn as we go. so it strikes me as very shortsighted. even if you don't like it from

the get-go, i was not onboard in 1996, we gave it a shot. in some ways, it worked better than i thought it would. but it was good to try it and see what works and what doesn't. even if you are an opponent. this issue is so serious. >> when you say most folks airport,. >> and never got above 50% popular approval and it has only gone down since then. it is the same as an experimental deficit reduction and we will see how it works out. sounds to me like we have to

pass within citibank consumer finance. the affordable care act is a monstrosity. nothing that one can be that good. it is in the nature of all documents and i will say it for randy and others, the longer things go on, the worse it gets, you know, we have to go over that. but obviously, entitlement have to be part of the reductions in spending. the defense has to be a big reduction, too, and we need to not only reduce our defense spending, but we need to reduce the number of missions. what we are using our defense capabilities for. many of the countries where we have troops are countries that are well able to defend themselves and they are good friends of the united states. germany is a good ally, japan is a good ally. we still have master forces and their dating back to world war ii. it makes no sense whatsoever.

whether you get into the bayonets of the horses are the aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines or whatever, you know, the navy at this point is just about power production. it is not clear that we need to be protecting our power everywhere in the world for that we need to be fighting undeclared wars on five continents. basically on all continents, including this one if you count the drug war and everything we have done in central and south america. you know, supposedly fighting drugs. we need to really rethink how much we want to intervene and how much we want our noses in other people's business. someone doing that is going to say, you're going to have to put up with a lot of people and coverage in "the new york times." some say why won't america come and help us. but the people should be helping themselves. they shouldn't be coming to the united states is to did help. the purpose of this country is

to keep her own people and own interests. >> if qadhafi massacres of people, that's okay? >> no, it's not something that i have a solution here. >> first being that any cut in government spending on defense related programs means, by definition, that you are hurting defense. we would not necessarily accept any cut hurts education or that any cuts but when it's defense -- [inaudible] secondly, a lot of conservatives say that the beneficiaries of this defense spending say that it will be bad if we cut the

spending. therefore, i briefly, we cannot cut the spending. but that is not what logic conservatives would accept with any other kind of government senators. when teachers say honestly the best thing we can do to stimulate the economy is hire more teachers. well, the answer to that is, of course they would say that, they are teachers. i think the best thing to stimulate the economy is to hire more conservative journalist. [laughter] >> i think it is just self-evident that that would work. [laughter] >> that is logic to consider that it rejects other forms of federal spending. there is also a form of keynesianism that sweeps into conservative economic thinking once you get into defense spending. they begin to talk about the loss of jobs at the close on a military base and the multipliers that we have is the hairdresser who, you know, is cutting the true terror won't have a job that point. that may come on some level be

true. i could be argued with every program. with other programs we look in terms of how that money could otherwise be spent and who might otherwise be employed and what other economic opportunities are lost as a result of the government spending. but when it is defense spending, conservatives have a bit of a blind spot with that. the purpose of national defense is defending the nation and then after that it is only secondarily about any other objectives, such as keeping the people who benefit from military spending employed. that is not to say that it will solve the problems, but that is the basic rule that you should adopt in evaluating spending. >> okay. we have gone over time. we had a late start. but i think we're going to have some closing statements from each person down the line. i guess we will start with you,

bill scher remapping you for having us here. i hope it was a great discussion. i just want to say that it is often said wally this is the most important election of our lifetime. people feel that way because the one that you're in. i do think that obama's victory could create a major ideological shift in the country. and obama's losing could have something to do with where we were a decade ago. it can be very unique and very promising. we could be doing some major advancement that would be great for the environment. obviously, the youth vote is very critical. it is also very unusual that people care so much. [inaudible] so you are lucky and blessed to be listening to and to be part of this election.

>> tim? >> though, i wanted people to step up a little bit. we talked about fiscally conservative people, and i would like to see some socially liberal liberals. we didn't get into the juggler or civil liberties were a bunch of other things. and i would like to see something from the left. as far as i can see, we have gone butkus on all those issues. every couple of years, there is a big debate that are held in some false. a connection between libertarians and conservatives, is coming to an end? my friend, jonah goldberg, says it has a pretty good idea -- libertarians are useful because they ask the question should the government be doing the thing we are talking about. there are some things that

libertarians can learn from conservatives. one of the roots of conservatism -- after eight years of bush in four years of obama, i'm not sure what conservatives or liberals stand for. one of the basis of conservatism is the idea that we are not perfectible, you're not really going to get any changes in behavior and are not going to be able to social engineer any great differences in the way that people are. you know, i think that is a valuable thing. i would like to see it in action. i'm going to vote for gary johnson, not really excited about this election. but when i look at what has budged in terms of things i'm interested in, it hasn't been coming so much from the cato institute by the tea party and ron paul that have really pushed

the core libertarian issues to the forefront. the point we're talking about the fed is no longer crazy talk. i appreciate that. most people come out of the conservative side. i would like to see someone from the liberals, so bill, get work them and want to thank everyone for coming. i would like to thank my colleagues. this is a very interesting election and the first in my lifetime when a candidate with the outcome will be. if you put a gun in my head right now, i would say there is probably going to be a popular electoral vote mismatch. mitt romney winning popular vote and the president getting reelected by winning in the electoral college. but the truth of the matter is that the margins we are looking at it so slender that we don't know. conservatism, though, is at a crossroads in the lot is not

necessarily writing on the outcome of the election is much as how conservatives respond to the outcome of the election. mitt romney is elected, there are many opportunities for conservatives, in terms of pursuing entitlement reform, which country definitely needs to get the debt to gdp ratio back to sustainable level content levels. regardless of whether it is consistent with the rhetoric that was used during the campaign in the bible regardless of whether it is in the interest of the country. that is something that we hope that conservatives will have internalized. i think in terms of the president is reelected, i think

that is a very good opportunity for conservatives who are very subsidies about the constitution, who are maybe a little bit more skeptical about erosion of civil liberties than earlier generations of conservatives. conservatives who might be a little bit more -- they might be strengthened by the president's reelection, some parties would be, as they have been strengthened by the grassroots activism against the president for the last four years. i see opportunities and risks reader either electoral outcome. and i think as important as politics are getting my candidate selected, i think it is important for them to focus on their principles and apply them regardless of the physical situations we find themselves in the muck i would like to thank jim and bill for being here today. we did run a little way and we will do a q&a that will be available to take your questions afterward. i'm sure you have many

questions. i would like to thank young americans for liberty for hosting this event. we have done a number of these campus debates and they have always been enjoyable. tonight was no exception. we appreciate you coming out, thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> i would like to get your opinion on the matter of whether or not we, as a country, want to continue slaying people at the behest of a joystick, almost indefinitely. both obama and romney to support the counterterrorism operations.

under what moral authority do we have to continue to kill people almost indefinitely without any kind of congressional declaration of war. ..

>> the problem, i think, the real problem for drones is they reduce the cause of usage, and therefore, take away the disincentive for using them. it's easier to blow people up from the air now than it used to be. this sthownt be a matter of cost, but decision. we don't need to take possessions on. we should not be blowing people up from the air, from a plane or from a drone. i mean, there's a lot of collateral damage coming from an f-16 coming and, or, whatever the new joint strike fighter's going to be, and blowing people up on the ground. this is not something specific to drones.

the problem is drones make it cheaper to do all of that, and, you know, when u only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like it nail. domestically and internationally because, you know, where drones are coming to town or city year you, and, you know, again, i'm not sure we need to say, you know, no police can use a drone because there's reasons to be wanting to be using an aircraft. i was walking my youngest kid in l.a. a couple years ago in a stroller. i was followed for two blocks in flat hollywood by a helicopter with its spotlight on me for him to go away. it was a piloted craft. if it was a drone, it wouldn't have made a difference. there's militarized police treating citizens like criminals

to be kept under control, and overseas there's a boundless military that needs to take out bad cases, but they need to be hitting targets, and it's not so much the technology. >> anybody else have a question or anybody want to answer the question. >> do you think we should fighting war against the terrorist at this point or should we not, and if you do, is the way we're going about it an effective way or a way to cause -- those are the two big questions. i happen to think that if you -- what i think al-qaeda's still a

problem, i grant that it is a difficult political problem for a president to say we won, and it's over. if you say it prematurely, get attacked next week, that's the end of your presidency. it's going to be over before somebody says that. >> lick benghazi. >> it happened, you know? that was local militants, not al-qaeda from above, but people, lose distinctions quickly in terms of politics, but i think there's still a reason to use them now. i don't think we're at the point yet where there's no cost. there's no reason not to use it. you want to be careful about the incentive question that you're not treating it like a hammer and everything like a nail. you want legal authority. 2001, the authorization is the legal authority, and if congress wants to yank it, they can.

if we're causing really destabilize in pakistan, it's an issue to look at. it's never been a wholly stable place, but we've been doing drugs there for a good long while, and i think that's because, to get back what i said about libya and egypt because we're not doing the foreign policy. it's more bottom up. america east not looking like the imperialist nation from the past dampening the pendulum here, it's a striking thing worth praising. >> yeah, i think if, you know, you blow up a wedding party, the people related to the people in the wedding party who were blown up don't think about what your objectives were or what ideology was governing why the strikes happened. i think that, i wouldn't often cite donald rumsfeld in terms of restraint in use of military

force. during the iraq war asked a question that applied to drones and other use of american force with the war on terror. are we killing more terrorists than we're creating and vice versa? that's the metric to look at. i don't have particularly a problem with the use of high value terrorists, but there's an extent of damage, what that does to encourage the things we're trying to event by pugging the strikes in the first place. >> thank you. >> what charles chastises the president for the increased use of surveillance drones alone, you know politics shifted. any other questions? yes, sir? >> first of all, thank you, all, for being here. it's been a great, great

conversation. as we heard y'all agree, the deficit will be fixed, not only by cutting government excess, but also by increasing revenue. how do you feel about legalizing or regulating drugs as a means of doing both of those? >> i'm all for it. i don't want anything taxed at all, but, yeah, i mean, this is -- we may be getting to a pragmatic kind of prohibition era question where it became expedient to legalize alcohol so that you could be, you know, getting some of the great -- so that the federal -- the government could be getting some of the proceeds from that great cash crop, and, you know, marijuana, as we all know, the biggest cash crop in the country. again, you know, i'm looking for the liberals to step up to the plate here. i hear this thing about, oh, wait until obama's relegislated,

he'll stop laughing any time anybody mentions this, the idea of legalization. it's not just a libertarian fancy. in opinion polls and in the voting in referendum in all of the states that it's come up in, it's more popular than gay marriage, more popular than a lot of stuff that moved into the consensus of acceptable discussion. it's only in official in washington that this has not been, you know, accepted, and, by the way, i hate to pick the liberals down one more time, but i have never, in my life, heard legalization of drugs talk about in a presidential debate until the first republican primary debit, end of last year or this year, and they got a big round of applause. they did not get through it off the stage. they got laughed at by mitt romney and the rest of them, but

you take out the little, what we call in marxist theory, the super structure of the party apparatus, and everybody takes it seriously. maybe the guys will contradict me. >> i prefer taxes on consumption opposed to an investment or anything that creates additional income. i'm not a fan of the drug war so i don't object to it. i'm skeptical of marijuana legalization as a grand deficit reduction strategy. i have to see numbers suggesting it would bring in the types of revenue that we're really talking about, and politically, it will be a very difficult thing to do so i'm not sure -- i'm in favor of it, but i'm not sure it's something you could put in the context of a deficit reduction package because serious package would entail enough other things that are

very politically difficult to do. >> i think most liberals are aware that you are. i don't think that the liberals in general abandoned the issue the way you suggest. obviously, president obama's not there at the fore front of where you are, and i would not go at the issue myself as a fiscal manner. look at first as, you know x what's best for public health? prosecution better for public health than regulated taxes on a side benefit, not a private reason for me to do it. it's tricky. i mean, i think by overstating the popularity here, if it was that popular, it would be done. politicians are politicians. i think there is certainly a

momentum towards it on certain issues like marijuana, broad based legalization is not popular, but, you know, jimmy carter tried this and got burned because it just takes one party with a bunch of 13-year-olds to get out of hand to be a media sensation and get blamed for it. politics are nervous about that, and, you know, so i think you can on paper say, you know, look, a drug user shouldn't be a criminal, public health problem, shouldn't have mass incarceration of wide segments of the african-american community over drug laws, that, itself, is a problem. let's do a shift here in our approach, but if it's a massive isolated incident that's blown out of proportion by the media or increase in use by youngsters, and there is evidence that suggests that drug

use as an adolescent is the worst possible time for your brain to be on drugs, then that's not going to happen. that's the blowback that's going to be harsh. it's a ginger topic politically. i would like to see a shift towards emphasis on treatment, getting from point a to point b is difficult. >> i think i said legalization was popular, but liberalization of drug wars, winding down the drug war, a big public health problem in the country, and it's a foreign policy problem, and it's a disgrace. we had the presidential debate a couping weeks ago about foreign policy, and nobody mentioned the 60,000 people killed in mexico since 2006 because of our war on drugs. >> thank you. >> i just want to thank you, all, for coming out, and

earlier, there was a lot of discussion about the response to the financial crisis and what the government should do to respond to that. there was not much discussion on the cause of the financial crisis and housing bubble. i'm sure bill says things about deregulation that caused him, and jim talks about bad housing policy and bad federal reserve policy, but i want to know your opinions, specifically, on what caused the housing bubble and subsequent financial crisis. >> you stated them accurately for all three of us. [laughter] >> i think -- like i said, you know, i'm not sure that 2000 and 2001 recession ended. i think we had this period of indefinite stagnation propped up by extraordinary low interest -- way were, at the time, considered extraordinarily low interest rates and the housing bubble that tapered over the programs, and, you know, i think

i do want to mention federal reserve policies which has, you know, certainly was a big driver in this. there is the, you know, there's a problem when you subsidize something or guarantee a bet, you're going to get people taking that bet and spending that money, and you've seen it -- we didn't talk about education policy, but that's -- that's been the biggest driver of the, you know, almost 300% increase in tuition costs since the 70s. these are all way outside inflation. it's where you see the most effort to, you know, make it more affordable and make it, subsidize it so everybody gets into a home and everybody can get an education. that's where you see the prices spike, and, unfortunately, i don't know how you guys do it in terms of the student debt, but, you know, the current generation of graduates are really going to be left holding the bag on this because of the huge amount of student death in there, and i think the same dynamic was not working in the housing crisis that you had this bubble.

it was, you know, artificially created by lose monetary policy, by policy that george w. bush pushed himself, the ownership society. wanted to get the rate of homeownership that was 60%-65% for, oh, going back about 50 years, you know, the number of -- about how many americans owned their homes. he wanted to get that up, picked up to 69%. now it's below where it was, and, you know, in my view, it needs to collapse further. we have seen an increase since the end of the 70s, an increase in house prices that has not been wound down and still needs to wind down further, and when i, you know, i have -- i get ulcers on my ulcers when i see yet another news story about, hey, the real estate market's finally returning to health. it's like the health is the problem. you know, spike -- the reinflation of real estate prices is the problem, and the decline in real estate prices,

as painful as it was, was the solution. >> outside, you look at regulation, lack of regulation more here than federal reserve probably, there's economic debatings about this that people are more articulate on the subject than i and others might be. you look at them, and this happened after the great depression, too. there's a lot of debate what exactly happened here. it's murky, hard to pin point the pinpoint all the time, but it's important to get at because you want to develop policies to respond to it. i think broadly, you got to look at the financial deregulation starting with with clinton, taid of the second term. some people shorthand it saying clinton a republican congress repealedded the banking classes to be kept separated, and therefore, the crisis happened.

in my opinion, that's oversimplified. you can't directly go from point a it point b there. there's other things, but i think you can say that a pretty major shift in financial regulation occurred because of clinton's last term, and then not a lot of monitoring of the situation occurred after that. okay, you changed the regime in a substantial way. on the financial community that we have always innovations we want to try. you're not letting us. okay. well, let's try it. let's see how innovations go, but let's watch you carefully here because if something's wrong with the financial system, it's really, really bad and not easy to patch up. let's be careful about this, and i don't think attitude was in store following that. there was evidence that a housing bubble was occurring and dismissed at the time by most folks, and aggressive economist says if you don't know the housing bubble was coming,edness

pay attention in -- didn't pay attention in washington, if you can't follow basic economics so that should have been paid closer attention to at the time, and people should have thought about what's going on here, what can we pass to clamp down on practices that are causing the bubble to rise? that's, that's where we are today. i don't think the solution to that is just to wash our hands of regulation and let it go on its own. you might have have a quick repeat performance. >> let's take one final question. >> great panel. the question's about the economy. i guess i'm not sure who mentioned it, but, yeah, i guess that the roles, more conservative on fiscal spending and, tim, you believed liberals are more, i guess, you believe in that the economy fall and

deals itself. i know this sounds crazy, but, you know, i remember reading something about there's a top, i think -- maybe 5% of the world, of the wealthy somehow -- okay, they consume -- okay. let me put it in the right words. yeah, they consume 30% of all the revenues that are actually going into gdp or the economy, and -- okay, they consume 40% of the pocket and 50% they spend. there's actually, you know, they do somehow stimulate the economy. i heard something -- tim said somewhere about, you know, nobody's -- like, everybody's holding on to what they have. i believe, like, that's, like, enough, you know, wealth, enough wealthy people to stimulate the

economy, but there's no reason to do it because it's not possible for those individuals, and i felt, like, in this kind of situations, shouldn't there be, like, some protocol, like people who actually profited in the last two or three decades, you know, made this much, and we already know -- >> asking if the wealthy should pay more than they are now? >> taxation gets some out of them, but more thinking of, like, you know, an emergency situation where they would have to actually -- >> you want them to buy more stuff? >> a hard cap on what they can make? >> well, i was, because i feel like, you know, trying to distribute the burden on everybody, giving the people, like, really hurt, especially the lower and middle class, as kind of, like, and, i feel like it's unfair, you know, shouldn't there be, like, some kind of policy, you know, for the really wealthy people at the top 10% or 5% to actually somehow just put

out whatever is needed to, you know, keep the economy going, and, you know -- >> okay. distribution and redistribution of wealth and tax rates, okay, go ahead, tim. >> we're really running full out on trying to get people to spend everything that they have, and that goes for rich and poor. i mean, you know, and, even though everybody agrees that capitalism is the greatest end gin of prosperity in the history of the world, whatever, the problem with the libertarianism is we actually below that. one of the basic ideas of capitalism is that you need to -- you need wealth formation. you need savings, and you need people to actually be building up their nest egg before they go out and spend it. i mean, we have a lot of incentives right now for everybody to go and spend, and we are seeing the successful results of the initiatives because nobody's saving. we have extremely low savings rates, and that's, you know, i

believe the experiment tried and failed, and we need to get away from the idea that we have to stimulate more spending or getting people to spend more. as far as the inequality question that you bring up, i mean, that's a -- that's a different thick thing, and, you know, i see statistics about the efficiency and so forth that indicate inequality's higher than it used to be. it's not something that -- i'm neither rich -- i'm neither rich enough nor poor enough for that, really, to be something that makes a lot of sense to me. i don't know, you know, i want to be part of the 1%, and we have, you know, fairly progressive taxation right now. one of the things that nobody, conservatives, liberals, or anybody else wants to talk about is that if you actually want to get revenues up, you need to start taxing more people. tim kaine, running for senate

right now in virginia, you know, mentioned it by kind of by accident in debates that we have a lot of people not paying taxes, they're not rich. >> no federal income taxes, not all taxes. >> right. he let that out of the bag. that's the opposite of what you're talking about. i mean, the rich do pay by the lion's share of all, you know r of all the taxes that get paid in the country are paid by rich people, so nobody wants to talk about broadening the tax base because, you know, it is politically radio active, but if you talk about raising revenues, that's something you have to do, opposite of what you're talking about. >> rick perry did, michele bachmann did, romney eluded do it, and in the 47% video, there's thoughts on broadening the tax base so people who a poor pay income taxes when they are not. this doesn't strike me --

>> i'm not saying whether it's right or wrong, but this is what the numbers tell you. >> yeah, to that point, people who even who are poor are working poor pay payroll taxes, sales taxes on goods they buy, state and local taxes so the notion this is widespread reloading going on, it's been debunked, but to the broader point, you know, what do you do about the kind of situation? to a point where i overlap with tim here, i'm not a socialist, nobody should have the same income, i don't like to be that rigid, but you want an income mobility. you want the ability to move up, and the concern is if you have policies that engineer great concentrations of wealth that you lose the ability to move up, you don't have the chance to get in the top 1%. if you had no estate tax at all, for example, and you could just pass down all of your wealth or

how much you were, to your heirs, that any tax at all, whatsoever, you'd have an hair stock sigh. we used to have that in the country a century ago. we stopped that. it was good we stopped that. you don't want to be so severe about it it's not worth it to pursue your economic dreams, and there's room in the tax code to do that. it's not a buy -- binary question. we need to have tax policy that taxes the wealthy fairly enough that we fund the government we want in a way that's not overly punishing success, but, i guess, it's the government we want. at the same time, you want to have a safety net. that's why the great recession of today was not as bad as the great depression when it started in 29 is that we actually have some policies in place that didn't exist then. we dent have food stamps back in 1929. republicans talked now about

obama's food stamp president. that's part of the design of the program from when it started, that's not obama's doing. the point is to have that there in an economically harsh time so you don't fall off the cliff. you want the number to go up in a recession so people have dollars to spend, not just for moral reasons, but that they can eat, and it's good for the economy they get out there and buy food. that's the point of the program, and one of the failings of it, that had some value in not letting the poor languish on dependency and find a way to move folks to work, i think if you want that, protect the policies. it was not very useful in a time of recession. if you have a time requirement as the policy says, you have x number of years to find a job or we cut you off, that doesn't work well, and there's no jobs, the ratio of job openings to the unemployed is out of whack. such a weakness in the state that's hutting us.

the food stamp part is actually working. it's helping. the poverty rate does not account for benefits, they do not include benefits you get. it would not be as high if you included those numbers. we cushioned the blow because the programs like that, and that's a good thing. now, we need to get to the next level repealing the bush tax cuts to have a fair tax code again so not only do we reduce inequalities, but help the economy like infrastructure, green power, education, ect.. >> jim has the final word. >> amazed by all the things we're going to buy by raising the top tax rates from 35% to 39.6%. i'll do it myself at some point, interesting to calculate all the things i've heard people are going to buy, and then twaim, the revenue you get, you get from doing that. there would be a big difference between the two. i think a flaw that with a lot of our economic thinking, and a flaw even in the way some of our

economic statistics are calculated is there's a bias and favor of consumption, and i think we have to look at production as being more of a wealth creator activity than consumption. production is what makes consumption possible, and i think by having the bias in favor of consumption, we sometimes neglect the degree to which savings and investment can be beneficial to the long term betterment of people. one of the biggest things that drives wage growth has been capital improvements over the course of the 20th century tracks very closely to increases in wages and ordinary people's living standards, and i think just in terms of everybody going out to the shopping mall is an oversimplification in terms of how economies are driven forward, and that's one of the reasons why i think we end up with some of the misconceptions that you can stimlace the

economy by simply taking, you know, water from the shallow end of the pool and dumping that into the deep end of the pool and taking it out of the deep end of the pool. you're basically taking from a stat tick economy, and you're trying to redistribute rather than grow the pie. when you think in terms of production, savings, and investment, you get a growth based focus on how to approach the economy. >> once against, i thank you for coming out tonight. enjoyed the questions, and i hope to see you all again soon. >> thanks for sticking with us. [applause]

>> moderator: welcome to the u.s. senate debate. for the next hour, you'll hear from six candidates woo want to represent maps in the u.s. senate. they are independent danny dalton, independent andrew dodge, secretary of state charley summers, a republican, democratic state senator cynthia dill. independent governor king, and finally, steve woods, also an independent. remember, the entire event is live on our website, wmtw.com. this debate is a partnership between news 8, aarp, and the university of southern maine. a quick word about the format tonight. the questions are a diverse mix from several sources like the editorial board, viewer, and e-mails. they want the debate to be truly interactive. we want to hear from you, news 8 reporter is standing by monitoring the website, facebook, and twitter. >> we have good questions coming in. it's your chance at home to ask the candidates anything you want. log on to our facebook page, twitter, or wmtw.com, live wire

discussion, and we'll ask the best questions during the next hour. >> moderator: palm, great, thanks. candidates have a minute to answer the questions, and rebuttals will be at the moderator's discretion. a coin toss out of the question, so we go in alphabetical order, opening statement from each candidate beginning with independent danny dalton. dalton: good evening, happy to be here. i'll get to the point. this debate as well as all the other debates, you're not going to get detail from the debates because the the shortness. go to everybody's website. i'm daltonsenate.com, i put a lot of work and effort in it, a lot of detail, find out how i came to conclusions, and go to the other candidates' websites on what they say about the issues. if they don't say anything, that's an indication. the reason i'm running for the united states senate is because i spent 25 years in the federal

government on many different agencies, and in those agencies, combined compromised about 40% of our discretionary budget. the mismanagement, misallocation of resources going on in the federal government needs to be addressed. the senate is supposed to be confirms responsible leadership into the organization. they are not doing that. they need to provide proper oversight. they are not doing that. they have to listen to constituents, they are not doing that as much as senator snowe and collins. thank you very much. >> moderator: cynthia dill? dill: thank you very much. i'm running for the senate because i want to make a difference. america needs a new generation of leadership. what's wrong with the congress is extreme politics and wealth. in this race, my opponents represent the status quo. we have charlie summers representing extreme politics and thing king remits extreme wealth. today's "new york times" characters the race as carl rove against bloomberg, and i'm

offering the people of maine an alternative, a true independent, someone not beholding to out of state money, just you and your families. i look forward to tonight's discussion. we need a new generation of leadership, and i'm pleased to be in the race, and i hope to have your support. >> moderator: senator, thank you. dodge: i'm andrew ian dodge. there's a lot of dodges up and down the coast. we've been in maine since before maine was a state and before even our revolution against the british. i'm in this race because i believe the issues of liberty, freedom, and individual rights are being trampled on left and right whether it's drones or arresting a local farmer for selling that terribly evil substance called raw milk. i'm the youngest in the race. i also have a touch of ethnic about me as i'm a quarter

chiequa, and i hope for a discussion tonight talking about issues that matter. it's been reported we have the second worst -- the second worst place to earn a living in the country. send one of them to dc, we need new blood. i'm that new blood. >> moderator: governor king? king: we have serious issues in the country, and they are ones we're probably going to touch on tonight. the debt, deficit, jobs, the economy, health care, energy. the problem is that we can't reach those issues if the congress, itself, does not work. that's why olympia snowe left. she didn't leave because she was tired of congress or wanted to spend time with family, but left because she said the place didn't function, couldn't get it done, and she was utterly frustrated. we have to try to do something different in order to respond to that challenge, and that's why i'm running for the united states senate as an independent.

this makes a difference. this is about solving the problems that the nation faces, and, for example, there's a bill before the senate in september that would have benefited veterans across the country. it was filibusters because the party in the senate that filibustered didn't want the president to have a victory before the election. that's a terrible way to make decisions. the concern should have been for the veterans, not for the politics. >> moderator: governor king, thank you. secretary charlie summers. summers: thank you, i appreciate the opportunity to talk about issues that are important to the country. i took america two centuries to accumulate $8 trillion and less than a decade to double that to $16 trillion. we're spending a trillion dollars a year more than we take in, and that is simply unsustainable. i want to go to washington and lead. i want to go to washington and lead the fight to cut spending, to reduce regulation, and keep taxes low so that businesses can

expand, people can get jobs, feed their families, and send kids to school. you can choose someone like governor king with a $300 million surplus increased spending by 50%, and left us with a billion dollar deficit, highest tax burden in the country, or choose me. i would like to, again, go to washington and leet the fight to reduce spending, to reduce regulation, and do things to grow this economy, and i would appreciate your vote. >> moderator: secretary, thank you. steve woods? woods: thank you. i'm not a politician, and so this is a little bit uncomfortable. i'm a businessman. i'm chairman of my local town council, but the negativity that consumed this campaign and others in the country bothers. me, sippet why, i'm tired of the quote of "old wealthy white men," it's beyond that.

charlie, tired of the gross distortions of truth in regard to king, and i'm tired of the tv commercials ruining all my favorite shows on abc. i get it. 1.3 million maine res get it. you think king is responsible for debt, black fly, and everything else. as a voter and citizen of maine, stop your attacks just for the next hour. you know, i'd like to talk about the issues. if you do not do any attacks in the next hour, i pledge to give two checks for $5 # ,000 a piece to the maine charity of your choice. an opportunity to prove you put mainers first, not politics. no attacks, two charities of your choice get $5,000. thank you. >> moderator: thank you. now that you know about the candidates, moving to the questions. we want to get in as much as possible because there's a lot of issues. again, your free to submit a question of your own. wmtw.com, facebook, or twitter.

just one in ten americans approve of the job that congress is doing. this is according to the latest gallop poll in august. that ties the branch's lowest approval rating 38 years ago. in fact, the reason you are here, and governor king, you mentioned this because senator snowe retired because she was tired of the lack of bipartisanship in washington. in fact, this is how she described the problem. >> you know, they are american issues. that's really the way we got to look at the various political questions rather than just draw, you know, stalemate, and fighting each other. if you don't get your way, you were abandoned any effort to resolve the issue. >> moderator: it's ma my way or the highway attitude that disillusioned voters concerned that nothing is getting done in washington. they want to know what you do about it. in fact, tf it was the number one question that we got. here's just a sample. >> what will you do to show the

voters that you can work together and be bipartisan? >> how are you going to break the gridlock in washington? to me, that's one 'ñy the bigget issues facing all of us right now. >> moderator: now, each one of you, whether it was your ads, website, campaigning across the state, uttered phrases you're not a career politician, outsider, independent, individual to shake it up in washington. maine is not buying it. why believe what you are saying? that's the question. secretary, starting with you? >> i look at the opportunity to serve in the country, iraq, afghanistan, united states navy reserve, and it's an opportunity to serve the country. i believe issues faced, particularly the debt in getting spending under control are serious issues that will dog this country if we do not do something about it, and i think the time has come for partisanship to fall to the wayside. we have to do that. we have to be willing to move the country forward, stand up and agree with people when they

think -- when they have a good idea, and times when we disagree, we can do so without being disagree l. that's the see component. mainers sents people to the senate whether it's smith or musky, mitchell, collins, or snowe, and they all come from partisan backgrounds, and yet, they feel it's critically important to move the process forward. that's the approach i'll take, and that's the approach i think will be successful. >> moderator: steve woods? woods: thank you. our most recent congress, the 111th included 688 total u.s. senate votes over a two-year period. if you're a republican that only cares about that, you should vote for charlie summers. he'll vote 100% of the time along party lines. if you're a democrat that cares more about party politics than the interest of maine or america, i guarantee you, dill votes 100% along party lines. such robotic representation is

what's wrong with government. charlie and cynthia will not change. they can't. grover and harry will not allow it. it's we, the voters who have to change. we have to listen to our better angels, vote for the candidates at all levels, local, county, state, federal that serve our common good and not fall to the serious seductive voices of fear or walk like shoppe in voting booths armed with the letters "d" or "r" to guide us. we have to listen to the better angels, put maine and country first. >> moderator: mr. dodge? dodge. i'm a true independent. i'm not part of either party. i plan to go to des moines and smack heads together to get it done. i'm not beholding to reid or whatever leads the republicans in the new senate, and, thus, i can act on my own behalf and get together with people who agree with me on certain issues. i'm not threatened with not being invited to the best parties, not getting donations,

not having big groups to support me when i run if i don't care about that. all i care about is the people of maine, getting it done for the people of maps. i'll be there as your representative, your senator, not anybody else, i'm not beholding to anyone. >> moderator: dodge, your time is up, senator dill. dill: thank you for your service to the state and country. i voted for senator snowe in 2006 and ran against her. i'm prod to be a democrat, support the democratic platform, what it stands for, glad democratics brought the country, social security, medicare, affordable care act. good things have been done by democrats, but i'm not driven by ideology. nothing in the record suggests i'm an ideolog or partisan hack. i sponsoredded legislation that led to the three ring binder project, a bipartisan project

that brought fiberoptic cables to rural maine. i worked with republicans and democrats, in the race to make a difference, and i will put the interest of maine people ahead of any party ideologies. to suggest you have values or belong to a team that you somehow don't care about people is just really outrageous, and, of course, as you see from tonight's debate, being independent doesn't mean anything other than you don't have a group. >> moderator: have to wrap it up there, mr. dalton? dalton: the two parties, what america did was make the two parties too big to fail, voting for the lesser of two evils, that's ridiculous in my point of view. when i walked down the state, i got signatures myself, talk to the people who signed by petition to get on the ballot, over 6,000 people. they all said what was said in

the broadcast, the two party system's broke, and we are putting money ahead of values when it comes to electing our officials, and our parties are controlled by major lobbyist groups controlling them in the lexes such as u.s. chamber of congress who undermind reform in places like our health care and also in immigration reform and this idea that senator snowe is just walking away because she couldn't handle the bitterness in politics is disingenuous. all the issues we talk about, immigration reform, tax reform, social security, they've been on the table since i was this tall. i'm an old guy now. what should be happening is we should old them accountable. >> moderator: we have to wrap it up now. governor king? king:ment question that the viewers asked is the question and comment that i've heard for the last eight months in maine. why can't they talk to each other? why can't they compromise and follow common sense? not only is it ag agree vat

aggravating, but there was a study done in san fransisco saying this bickering in congress is costing us jobs, costing the economy. they estimated unemployment would be 2% lower if not for this. i'm in this for this very reason, and it's what i lived for eight year z an and independent governor. i didn't have a party in the legislature. every tuesday morning, we had breakfast with republicans and democratic leaders in the blaine house to bring them to together to talk about the issues. sometimes i worked with the democrats, sometimes with the republicans, but the whole thing was an exercise in gets parties to work together on behalf of the people of maps. i don't have a formula in washington, but i think we've got to try. >> moderator: thank you. next question. the economy is improving, but not fast enough. maine's unemployment's figure was 7.6%.

it is slightly up from a year ago. going to paul now, a question from a viewer. >> shannon, the question about jobs in small businesses comes from the live wire section of the website from shawn moody. he says all candidates tout their small business experience as an ability to create jobs. how many jobs have you created in the last year? how many co-workers do you employ, and do you cover their health care? >> moderator: senator dill, starting with you. dill: in the last year, i worked as a state senator. i started a non-profit, and also teach at a community college, and so i have not created jobs other than for myself. i provided training, i think, sister students, and i'm working on policies to help the government create an environment for small business. i come from a long line of small business. i ran a small law firm for many, many years. i don't think you can look at governors and see business

acumen doesn't translate into good governance. we need to put the needs of business, what we need in maine and america is to invest in education and infrastructure to reform our taxes, to reduce our spending, and to get this economy on track so that the government can provide environment for small businesses to grow and prosper and to help families get through the economy, the disperty in income, in my view, the biggest problem, and what the two major opponents offer is more of the same. >> moderator: we have business owners, mr. dalton or dodge? dalton: i'm not a small business owner, i'm self-employed, a free lance writer. when you run for senate, you're not employed as a pundit. i've not created a job, but cost myself a job while running for office.

i don't -- on that question, i don't have a good record. >> moderator: mr. woods, and followed by dalton. woods: thank you, shannon. it's sad we looked at federal service separate as competency. to be in the u.s. senate, it's a job, a complex job, legal issues, financial, communication issues. i own six businesses. everyone here in maine, across the country talks about jobs. in the abstract, i will do this. secretary summers talks about three decades ago working in the hotel which is fine. i employee close to a hundred people, offer health care benefits, and i i don't know one of my countries, pro-america health preventative care across the country. >> moderator: hard numbers on that to answer the question specifically. woods: in terms of number? >> moderator: how many exactly do you employ? woods: 63 people, we provide health care. my daughter, 21, benefits from

the affordable care act. she's on my health care plan. i was at my office at 6 a.m. while otherñ&r candidates were plotting political strategies. business is important. business -- business experience is relevant as opposed to people from outside of business just talking about abstract. >> moderator: mr. dalton, answer the question. dalton: briefly. i have a manufacturing business, registered here in maine, we sell nationally. we manufacture in china. we have, like, ten reps that sell it nationally. we subcontract to businesses here in the state and also warehouse in kansas. the problem comes back to how do you develop a more small business within maine, and our dear governor lee page had an idea to cut corporate income tax, went to china, met with the chinese manufacturing business organizations over there. we sent $270 million worth of progs to china --

products to china, and a draw back of small businesses in maine that we have a corporate income tax applied to experts making us uncompetitive globally. >> i served as secretary of state, in terms of the private sector, i have not created private sector jobs, and prior to that, well, others were running businesses, i was serving in iraq and afghanistan. in the last four or five years, i have not had the opportunity, but, certainly, i did run small businesses, managing hotels in bangor, south portland, and ran a small business in bedford. >> moderator: talk about those numbers. woods: we didn't offer health insurance, but i employed three people. >> moderator: king? king: i brought $5 million of negative advertising money into the state. i figure i created a lot of jobs in the tv industry. [laughter] in the campaign, we have about 10-12 people. i'm proud to say that even though it's a short term

campaign experience, we do offer health care to the people working in the campaign. i'm also serving on the board of happencock lumber, lee auto, bank of kern, all maine companies maintaining jobs, and those companies all offer health insurance. >> moderator: next question. household income in the united states, in maps, the number substantially was 49,000 in 2010. what do you think is the primary issue facing the middle class in maine, and how would you address it immediately, and we're looking for specifics here. mr. dodge? dodge: well, i think it comes back to the report that says the -- it's hard to make ends meet in maine. we're doing very poorly in that, and one of the biggest problems is that we export all our entering people, people get out of college, can't find jobs in

maine, and they leave. there's the missing tier of maine life that's not hear to -- here to start businesses, not here to increase the size of businesses, and they leave and do it elsewhere. that's -- >> moderator: how would you fix it? dodge: the fundamental problem in maine is that we need to reduce taxes and regulation, and do everything we can to attract business and we're clearly not doing that or we wouldn't be rated sod badly in that earning a living. >> moderator: okay, all right. senator dill? dill: just briefly, i wonder how many jobs market smith, snowe, and mitchell created? i don't think there's a direct correlation between the ability to serve the public and track record in terms of numbers in businesses, but to address the question, two-thirds of the united states senate are millionaires, and the bush tax cuts are the cause of the debt and deficit, the collapse of wall street, people succumbing

to greed led to the struggle families face. there's a direct correlation between the fact there's 17 women in the united states senate and 24% of women live in poverty. i believe there's a correlation between a senate that's captured by corporate special interests and big money, and the fact that one in five chirp are without adequate health care. i believe there's a correlation between the growing disperty between the haves and have-notes, and what we see in the challenges of maine families. i'm the only candidate in the race talking about poverty, i'm a middle class working mother, in to make a difference, and i will make a difference for maine families. >> moderator: we want to goat to a lot of questions, but -- mr. woods? woods: the beginning and end of that answer, i believe, is education. we have a large infrastructure here in maine. maine is approximately the size of the other five new england states combined, and we have a relatively small economic engine. it's nobody's fault. it is the way the state is laid

out. the answer for us to compete, years ago, people competed in commerce and local proximity, then horses, then cars, then air transportation. we're in a global market place. i was in california last week, and we have to compete across the country. that involves technology, investment in technology, and i believe it starts to grade k-12. to talk about jobs for people in their 20s and 30s, that's important, but we don't focus on being more competitive and more advance the, we will not be competitive in the global marketplace, and that's core to the issue. >> moderator: mr. dalton, go ahead. dalton: briefly, middle class here facing camming thing middle class is across the country. it's due to the fact our government does not work together like everyone's said because they are controlled by special interests and major lobby groups that are to the putting in place specific things like comprehensive tax reform that makes sense, that's

officially our accumulates revenue, and it's equitably distributed. what we need to do is make sure we have comprehensive tax reform that makes sense, and address the waste in mismanagement and allocate resources we see throughout government, evident in benghazi, they couldn't take a hundred marines in benghazi drawing down from iraq. we have to address that. we can address that with more independents there to make sure the two parties know there's someone else available to take their place. >> moderator: let's move on to the next question now. real quick. real quick. >> you know, i think the issue here, i campaigned all over the state, and i met with people today, a woman working the second, and sometimes a third job to make ends meet the the best thing to do is get government off of business' back so they understand that they can -- if they have a tax system that's fair, they can plan five to ten years down the road in

terms of buys equipment, hiring people, and the best thing we can do is get government out of the way, reduce regulations, and keep taxes low and cut spending so that the economy request grow so people have jobs to feed their families. >> moderator: moving on to the next question. over the past month, we've seen gas prices falling a lill, a nice change of pace. four years, $3.67. four years ago, it was a record, a state record, $4.14 a gallon. what is the best way not only in the short term, but long term to find a solution here. king: get off of oil as quickly as we can. the demand is going to continue to grow, particularly in places like china and i india, and the sooner we have substitute fuels, and i think for the intermediate future anyway, that's natural gas. as long as we're careful how it's extracted, and it can be extracted safely, can be enormous advantage to us. we can use it through natural

gas -- i was on a bus today in portland powered by compressed natural gas. you can -- we can use it to power electric vehicles. at the same time, there needs to be a parallel track with renewables to be there when the gas runs out, the demand increases to the point where the price goes up. to power a vehicle on natural gas is equivalent to $2 a gallon, and it would be the same for home heating. getting off the oil should be the number one priority, and we're finally in a position to do it. this has just come to us in the last four or five years. >> moderator: all right. senator dill? dill: thank you. certainly, gas prices are a challenge to any family in maine trying to get their kids to school, get to the store, or get to work. i do support the president's fuel efficiency standards that will lead to automobiles that rely on less fuel, which will, therefore, cost families less money. i'm the only candidate in the race with respect to charlie and

angus who opposes the pipeline. i don't believe transporting tar sands oil is a way to get off oil, but that furthers the problem. i'm opposed to hydrofracking. i realize the domestic production is something we have to rely on, and i support the president's policies leading to the highest domestic production in decades, but we have to pivot towards renewable energy. maine can be a legal. we have solar power to be exported, but energy efficiency is the key. we have to conserve and be efficient when it it comes to the use of energy and fuel leading to less reliance on gas and oil, less hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, and ultimately, less money spent. >> moderator: okay, thank you, senator. next to charlie, and wrapping it up with king. >> what they want to do is get back and forth to work in an

independencive way. we have a moral responsible in the country to look for energy resources here, and whether you're talking about oil, talking about gas, coal, nuclear power, we have to have an all of the above strategy. you know, ten years ago in the united states senate, they had a debate, and at the end they say, you know, if we drill now, it takes ten years before that oil becomes gasoline and in our fuel system. that would have been done, we would have it here today if that was done ten years ago, and i think that we have a speedometer -- responsibility because every single day we import oil from the middle east is paying people we fight against. drill for oil in this country, look for every alternative we have. without that, without that, not only is that an economic issue, but it's a national security issue. as swrun who served in the middle east, i understand full well what that means. >> moderator: thank you, secretary. go ahead, mr. woods. woods: thank you, shannon. it's nonnot an issue of policy

or ideology, but the issue of the survival of civilization. we're on the earth with finite resources, finite energy resources. at some point, we'll run out. some predict 40 # years, 60 years, 80 years. this will not be about what's the price at the pump, but involves agriculture, plastic, petroleum, involves our society, our sur viefl as a civilization. it has to be an urgent issue toke -- to be looked at. the federal government is in a position to support and subsidize technologies. the more we talk about politicizing this in the same way we do with climate change, move away from the idea it's science, it's math, and it's urgent. thank you. >> moderator: you're welcome. talk about health care. moving on to another question, and starting with you, this time, mr. dalton. affordable care act provides candidates teases to affordable health care to millions of americans. critics say it's expensive, takes money from medicaid, and

pushes government on people. what do you like or not like about the affordable care act? dalton: access to affordable care is what i like, and what's wrong with the -- what happened here is that the two parties again, democrats and republicans, who i hope i replace by more independents so they are held accountable to be in the pockets of major lobbyists, they doabts come to reform when it comes to the major issues. to allow major lobby groups like big pharmaceuticals, the u.s. chamber of congress, ama, and even aarp, to get in the room and force them to make requirements that are not for the best interest of the people, the reason we have a mandate was because that was forced down their throat. the reason we have -- we don't have a public option, which would have allowed people to not have a mandate and have a public

insurance provider was because of the different pharmaceutical and big lobbyist groups that everyone's taking money from. we need to stop that. >> moderator: sorry, we have to move on. governor king, you want to answer the question? king. -- king: i support the affordable care act, huge mistake to repeal it. it's providing benefits to mainers. i was one who is covered under his parent's health insurance, 23 years old, looking for work, he wouldn't be, and then he also was born with a tumor in his brain, noncancerous, thank goodness, but that constitutes a preexisting condition and probably could not get health care the rest of his life except for the rules of the affordable care act so i think it is an important step forward. it's not the whole answer. it does not cut medicare benefits. it takes money from some providers and insurance companies under medicare reallocating that money into the

medicare system. the aarp right down there on your screen has confirmed that. they wouldn't support it if they thought it took money away from seniors, but the next issue is cost, and the affordable care act also has my lot programs, several of which here in maine that are going to, i believe, substantially bring down costs so i think it's an important law. >> moderator: okay. charlie, i suspect you disagree? summers: well, i do, and for one very important reason. i think the affordable health care act is probably the most misnamed thing i've heard. there's nothing affordable about it. this country is $16 trillion in debt, and what we're talking about is spending an additional $2.6 trillion, and where is the money going to come from. this is another big government solution that will cut $716 billion out of medicare. >> moderator: specifics? is that what you don't like is the money that it -- summers: specifics of that and $2.8 million it cuts from may

mainer's medicare and puts more bureaucracy in place. the prongtsed savings, we've seen projected savings before. in 1994 when they passed medicare and medicaid, said it would cost 64 million at that point. we have to allow individuals to go across state lines and purchase health insurance like they purchase their homeowners insurance or any other ?urnses in the lowest cost provider, and the second part of that, much less expensive option, is to allow them to deduct that from the federal income taxes like they do the home mortgage interest. >> moderator: we spoke about aarp, and that's the next question as well, talking about social security. let's talk about the issue. for millions of -- dill: can i have the opportunity -- >> moderator: trying to get as many questions as possible, but feel free to interrupt each other or chime in. we are trying to get to it, halfway done. cynthia, do you want -- dill: well, i want to thank the

democrats for the affordable care acting and what i like is children can stay on the policies until they are 26. there's no caps on benefits. you are not discriminated against because the preexisting condition. women are not considered a preexisting condition because of the gender. there's preventative mammograms, screenings, seniors get affordable drugs. the affordable care act is good. thank the democrats for it. >> moderator: mr. dodge? dodge: well, yet again, democrats want nationalized health care, bureaucrats running the health. that's the ultimate goal, and obamacare is just the first step, and i'm against obamacare, and any american who wants to decide what their own health care is should be against it too. >> moderator: mr. woods, go ahead. woods: thank you. for every dollar spent in preventive care, that saves $5 in treatment. i like that. preexisting conditions is important in covering people under 26. i think that when yao talk about

politicizing this, we lose sight of something. in america, we're not like other health care systems. we're not like britain or canada. our philosophy, our dna, we have a miranda rule imperative to take care of people from prenatal to the seniors. this is not something that we need legislative authority. i support affordable care because it's the best first step we've had in decades. it's who we are as americans that we take care of people when they are ill. we do not turn people away at hospitals. we do not deny people coverage. all of the affordable care act does is make sure we can identify and that people pay their fair share so i do support it. thank you. >> moderator: woods, thank you. for millions of americans, 300,000 people here in maine, social security is more than a retirement benefit. it is a safety net. in maine, nonpartisan aarp nodeses one-third of the beneficiaries 65 and older rely on social security as their entire income. that's it. the average month le benefit is

$10 # 65. -- $1065. tell us about your plan for today's seniors and future generations. senator dill? dill: thank you. social security is important. i have a 94-year-old grandmother living on social security, and i know people in maine and america rely on it, and, again, thank the democrats for social security. what i would do to shore up the finances for social security is raise the income cap. currently, it's $110,000 or thereabouts. we should shore up financial stability for decades. we can also tax salary reduction plans. we can also gradually increase over 20 years the contributions that people make into the system. currently, employees and employers contribute, it's a social insurance program, not an entitlement program, and if we all contribute just a little bit more, the program can be sound for future generations. it's important not only for maine seniors, but important, especially for women because

they contribute less because making less in wages, take years out of the work force to raise children, live longer, and they have more complicated diseases at the end of their life. social security is something i pledge to protect and strengthen summers: i will not support legislation that cults social security benefits for people currently in the system. i do not support privatization of social security. i'll tell you why. fifteen years ago when i lost my wife, my children, 8 and 11, at the time got social security. i was able to raise my children because of social security. i think it's important. i think that those who have paid into it and are in the system need to be protected. now, going forward, i think younger people as they come into the system, they may have to retire at a later date, and wealthy people like governor king may not get as much as a benefit. i think that it's important to note that we need to protect it for preach who are on the system right now. >> moderator: governor king in

king: well, it's important to understand how important it is in maine. if social security wasn't present, 8% of seniors in maine who are now in poverty, that number jumps to 49%. i mean, it's absolutely essential. i'm dead against privatization now or in the future. that would destroy the program. i don't think it should be means tested. that turns it into a welfare program. i don't think social security is an entitlement. it's something people paid into and earned, and social security is not in serious trouble. we can raise the cap on where the tax applies, and 40 years from now, perhaps, increase the retirement age. the fixes to social security are not that radical. medicare is in much more serious financial condition, and often, those two are mixed up, but social security is in relatively good shape, but any effort to

prieftize it or voucherrize it or anything else would be a huge mistake. >> moderator: okay, mr. dalton? dalton: the reason social security is in bad shape is because the two party system that didn't act on the issue 20 #-40 years ago when they should have, you know, we can blame the two party system. anybody that doesn't vote for independent here, don't ever complain to me about the two party system again, the democrats or republicans. like they said, this is not a very big problem to fix. to congressional budget office says it's .6% of the gdp. whether or not you call it entitlement or not, if you say i've earned it, then, believe me, when it comes time for me to collect it, i want it, i earned it, okay? entitlement or not, whatever you call it, i want my money when i'm 65. to put it on the backs of the younger people now, doesn't make sense. adjust it by 2% over 20 years, and it would solve the 75-year

short fall. for people 55 and older, by the time i'm 65, if i add 2 #% at least for ten years putting into it and involve solving the problem. >> moderator: right now, going to paul who has a question for the candidates from a viewer. >> facebook page from sharon dudley asking do the candidates support a policy if the budget doesn't pass, then they don't ged paid? >> moderator: woods? woods: i do. there's a bill that introduced that. i do support that. i think that -- everyone's talked about the two-party system. everyone's talked about what's wrong with government. i like to make a comment on that. i think that what's really wrong is a broader sense of the decay of democracy. we're electing people that are making bad decisions for us. whether it has to do with how we handle debt, how we handle

issues like budget that keeps going or debt to china. the answer is for people to take ownership of the democracy. the answer for all of these problems, i believe, does not exist at these two tables. there's fine men and women here that can be -- that can be instruments for some of the solutions, but people involved, viewers tonight need to be more involved. they need to demand, not just here, but across the state, local, county, that's where the answers are. yes, i do think that it's ridiculous there's people in government not making decisions, but, yet, they collect a paycheck when others are suffering. >> moderator: a show of hands, no budget, no pay. who is for it? >> i want to say that they are all millionaires, who cares. >> yeah, what's the point? >> there's no point. the idea is, again, that the two parties supposed to be doing their job, and the way to stop them from not doing their job, and to be in the pockets of these major lobbyists, and

powerful interests and special interest groups is by having independents like king or woods or someone else to hold them accountable for not doing their job and making sure that we're not rewarding incompetence and bad behavior. that's what you doing, the two-party system, too big to fail, put in place, ensuring through the media they get all the attention, the other candidates here are not even addressed, and their issues are not addressedded. they're in a whole campaign. >> moderator: let's go to dill. dill: i support no budget, no pay. keep in mind, the one proposing and supporting that is the group providing millions of dollars to the king campaign. that's another super pac. king: that's not true. no labels is not a super pac. they contribute nothing to my campaign. dill: no labels is not a super pac, but those on the border directors write checks to the king campaign. king: that's not true. dill: it was reported tonight.

the idea it's a party system is ridiculous. sure, support no budget, no pay, but the problem isn't as danny dalton said, they are all millionaire as. we need people in the senate who maybe are aware of what it takes to feed a family, who have been in the grocery store, who are middle class people, who are in touch with the challenges of ordinary people who know there's consequences if a budget does not pass. today's congress, they are out of touch, and we need a new generation of leadership. >> moderator: moving on to medicare right now. medicare provides hospital, physician, and prescription drug coverage for millions of americans including 270 # mainers. we all -- 270,000 mainers. we all pay to plan on it for retirement. what is your plan or future and current seniors? >> ensure people who paid into it and in the system now, but i think the first thing we've to do is repeal obamacare because that cuts $716 billion out of medicare and costs maine 2.8

billion. i met with health care administrators across maine who agree it would cost money. you know, there's supposed projected savings, but that's like the projected savings from king's windmills. that's not going to happen. we have to deal with the here and now and today and protect medicare and make sure our senior les have that ability to benefit from the program. the first thing we have to do is repeal the president's health care plan. >> moderator: mr. king, you were mentioned. king: that seems to be the way it goes. medicare, no vouchers. that's the -- that's the ryan plan that was in the budget that congressman ryan got through, turn medicare into a voucher program where seniors get a voucher, shop, and buy insurance. i'm dead against it. i oppose it as firmly as i could. the issue with medicare is the same as the issue with anthem or any other payment mechanism,

hospital, and medical costs go up, and what we have to do is figure out a different payment, called the one in portland, one in louiston, and one in agus that where we are starting to pay for health and prevention in primary care rather than paying for procedures. i think that's the secret that we have to go to, and it's happening right now in maine, went we're already seeing results. i talked to the directer of the of the hospital in eastern maine, they are already seeing results from that way of handling health care to bring the cost down, and that's the way we're going to save medicare. >> moderator: mr. woods? woods: there's $10,000 wart of checks there from the attack pledge that didn't come through. medicare is critically -- dill: a pledge for anyone but you, chemoyour money, thanks. woods: thank you, cynthia.

dill: you're welcome. woods: on one side of the equation, we have what represents health care. we have medicine, treatment, institutions. on the other side, there's patient. every single american and mainer is a patient from prenatal care to senior care. the issue is the 42% in the middle, transactional costs, we can do better, should do better. we cont do it on the back of the most vulnerable of americans. what we need to do in terms of health care reform, then we can make it first time, but we should not politicize senior people, the most vulnerable americans. >> the way to cut costs hugely is by cutting the costs of bringing drugs to market. the fda and the drug administration make it so expensive that great products that could help lots of people are not brought to market because small companies are not

getting, can't afford to get them approved. that's how you bring down drug costs and take big farm out of the equation. >> moderator: ending with this, and we have less than 1 minutes. dill: thank you so much. thank democrats for medicare if you like it. i agree with what angus said. we can go a long way to stabilize medicare redoing part d allowing medicare to negotiate for prescription drugs. i take it further suggesting we have medicare for all. it's an excellent program. it does need to be reigned in. we have to make changes, but it's important, and, again, you can thank your democratic party for that. dalton: you cancer address it without comprehensive tax reform. we need to pay for the things we want the government to pay for, and everyone has to be involved with payering if that, and the way to do that is a sales tax to help us in the global economy, thank you very much. >> moderator: starting with you on the next question.

super pacs, what was mentioned here, outside groups spending millions of dollars to influence the race independently of your campaigns without accountability. you are not paying for the commercials on the air waves. is this acceptable? if it's no, how would you change if? dalton: the best way to get the representative you want not controlled or helped by big money in politics and special interests and pressures that come from that and the big lobby groups is to make sure you vote for a candidate that doesn't accept the money. i'm here at the table with everyone else, go to my website which i explain all issues in complete detail. i dare say no one else at the table put as much effort into their website which everyone has access to, how i came to the conclusions on the issues, the

information there, and if you want to respond to me and help me decide what's the best thing for this country, that's the best way to do it. i would like to know it from the people, not having special interests pacs, and super pacs, hey, if you want to take the money, go for it. it's up to the part-time to -- up to the people to decide who to vote for. >> moderator: mr. king? king: the super pac business is awful. i've been a beneficiary of it, but we have to end it. specifically how to do it? first thing, there's a bill in the senate called the disclose act so we know where the money is coming from. we have no idea where the money is coming from for all these ads, and that is a specific thing the legislature can do. the congress can do. the next step, i'm afraid, could be a constitutional amendment because the supreme court ruled that money is speech and corporations are people. if that's what the supreme court said, then the only way to change that is either to change the supreme court or change the constitution.

i think that this -- this super pac money is ridiculous. here's a flier i got today or yesterday in the mail that is promoting dill saying what a bad guy -- not that i'm a bad guy, but a supporter of bush. heeds be surprised to find that since i campaigned for kerry in 2004. it comes to me from safe nation pac, 57 street georgia. who is this? it's a couple republican operatives in atlanta who are sending are misleading flier to democrats in maine trying to convince to vote for cynthia dill. the whole thing is ridiculous. i think the rule ought to be only residents of the place where you are running can contribute. if you run for the u.s. senate in maine, only maine people can contribute. i'd live with that system in a minute. dodge: that led to the birth of the country, it was not about corporations. it was not about roveb but it

was about representation, the most prerks freedom that was free speech. citizen united, awful decision, super pacs, bad, election reform, we need to have that. it's not just so much -- people talk about big government being bad. my experience in terms of the campaign is that it's the political industrial complex that's insidious here in maine and nationally. i think we need to get back to the principle that when people want to run for office, whether it's the six candidates here tonight, local office, county, state, they should be able to have a straight dialogue with the electorat and say vote for me, here's what i stand for. people shouldn't come in from atlanta saying don't vote for king, don't vote for steve, that's not, i think, a bit rooted in our democracy. >> moderator: i'm going to end the question with secretary summer. summers: we are talking about free speech, do i like the ads,

others don't either, but the fact of the matter is we get wrapped around the axel on the issue. what we should focus on is doing things to cut spending in the country, getting our regulations undercontrol, grow our economy. the average person in the state of maine, people who work with hands for a living wonder how to pay their mortgage, pay taxes, send their kids to the university of maine, and that's the discussion we should be having tonight, not whether or not somebody from georgia, washington, or wherever sends whatever in. we stand on the records. mine's been examined, everyone else's here have been examined. you have to stand up and deal with it. this is a serious job we're going now. there has to be difficult decisions to be made. to wring our hands and cry about who says what about whom on the playground. that demeans the process. >> nobody's crying. you're the secretary of state, head of elections. to claim it's free speech, it's not. billionaires control the election. it's not free speech.

>> he's whining again. tired of it. we should be talking about issues that matterment people's jobs, people's ability to feed their family, not whether or not steve is offended. >> moderator: moving on to taxes now because i'm sure that will create lively conversation as well. americans don't believe the tax burden is fairly contributed. investment taxes lower rates than people who earn money at the jobs. what's the fair amount of taxes? we have five minutes left. we want to get everybody to answer. move along. dodge: corporations, individuals, across the board 15% flat tax, no more. that's the way to keep us competitive, and i'm against progressive taxation because it's unfair and anti-american. dalton: the income tax system is dysfunctional. shouldn't have the income tax situation. need a different tax system. sales tax or fair tax is the way to go. corporate income tax should be erased, replaced by a sales tax, and corporate income tax is

something that none of the other countries have, and it makes us uncompetitive globally. look at the welcomes, thank you. >> moderator: dill in dill: our tax system needs ref formation. i'm the only one who supports president obama's proposal not to extend bush tax cuts for those making above $250,000. we have to stop giving subsidies to oil, gas, and large corporations who don't need it. we have to impose a financial transaction tax on very small tax on stock trades for those responsible for the collapse of our economy, are chipping in. i do believe that we need to lower corporate incomes tax rates, stabilize the base, make sure it's fair. everybody should be paying their fair share. i think it's time, super wealthy, corporations pay more. i agree with warren buffet. >> moderator: three minutes later. summers? summers: doing things to ensure taxes are as low as they can be in this country because by doing that, we increase the number of people who are paying taxes

because they can get jobs. you know, if we're not selling a product as a company, we don't raise prices. we figure occupant why we're not selling the project, but we work on volume. you know, we can't tax our way out of the situation. you know, king made a big push in his campaign, the central theme of raising taxes. that's the worst thing to do, even president obama two years ago advocated extending the bush tax cuts. we can't afford to do that. we have to keep taxes low and expands job opportunities. >> moderator: governor king? king: nobodiments to make raises -- nobodiments -- nobody wants raise taxes, but we have to look as revenues as well as cuts. it's impossible to do it otherwise. i'm engaged with a project called the simpson-bowles, led by simpson of wyoming, a republican senator, and bowles,

a democrat from south carolina. what they propose is cutting tax rates, eliminating loopholes, deductions, and exemptions, and actually reducing rates, but taking 8% of revenues generated by the process putting it against the debt. that's prudent, responsible, and nobody wants to raise taxes, but we have to talk seriously about this, and some frame work like simpson-bowles or other plans out there on a bipartisan basis, i think, are going to be necessary to solve this problem, and i think what we'll end up with is a fairer tax system and lower rates across the board and more fairly distributed amongst our people. >> moderator: okay. mr. woods? woods thank you, shannon. it's common sense, math, there has to be revenue, and there has to be cuts. i appreciate, again, secretary summers talking on this issue, but for somebody who sign the grover pledge, here's not allowed to talk about revenue, even if he believed it in his

heart, show him a spreadsheet showing it's just math. charlie says, no, i can't do it, i signed a pledge. >> [inaudible] >> if i could just finish here, cynthia, i did say -- we can talk about that if that's a question. there has to be tax reform. corporate tax rates should be adjusted, but i think the bush tax cuts for the wealthy should be looked at and should be removed. ..

>> end 8q. have a wonderful night. have a great weekend. look at ted border for the

whole nation we need comprehensive imitation -- immigration reform. i meet with the ranchers we have the block the immigration system is broke and it takes hours to go back and forth. it is an impediment to commerce. we have to provide at work force that can move back and forth easily but we cannot do that because of the impediment by not having a comprehensive and negate -- immigration policy that is economic. >> raised -- issues raised being near the border border, especially susceptible to a national trend with unemployment and

the economy. we need things desperately like a commuter plane. that is not allowed in our system but one thing we have to avoid is the sequestration at the end of the year that will hurt military readiness budget in area like yuma arizona at -- arizona relying on a defense would be devastating >> good evening.

we are glad you're with us. on tuesday central the yorkers the newly drawn at 24 and congressional district. look at the map it now includes those counties in light blue. if you are a registered voter -- voter in the light blue shaded area you have a choice to make if the polls are accurate every vote will matter. it is considered too close to call. the next dow were may help you make up your mind and decide the election. now let's meet the candidates left to right ann marie buerkle incumbent

republican congress will then. in the center is ursula rozum big green party candidate and on the far right is dan maffei challenge jane four arizona to. each candidate will have 60 seconds and we will allow rebuttals and if we do need them at additional 30 seconds will be given. based on the drawing the first question will be answered by ann marie buerkle. likud this graphic based on a report from bloomberg. it shows the red line combining medicare, medicaid, social security and the interest on the national debt will exceed government revenues by the year 2025. 24 the is 50% more than the

government collects assuming it is through 20% of gdp. congresswoman how would you propose changing entitlement programs to keep them solvent? taxes will not get the job done. buerkle: thank you for hosting this today. we have a problem in the country and thus we have the fortitude to have the balanced-budget amendment in place with the money and where it is going. right now they perpetuate themselves. there are no changes proposed they continue. you know, how dramatic medicare/medicaid spending has gone up. affecting property taxes for pro last year the house cut

captain balance put a balanced budget into play but the problem is the senate failed to take up the budget there has been no serious spending plan other than what the republicans have proposed to make cannot negotiate with ourselves. rozum: i disagree taxes cannot get the job done. we need to remove the tax cap those making over $110,000 contributing to social security. to stabilize medicare cost i am in favor of medicare for all. a takes the profits to the monopoly profits of the pharmaceutical companies to

put them into care. for those working people in central york we need to lift the tax cap and medicare for all. maffei: we need a balanced approach. we need to make sure balance the budget the right way. not the seniors are middle-class. but like bill clinton did ask for shared sacrifice from millionaires and billionaires. get rid of the tax breaks for oil companies exxonmobil show they have record profit again. i will take one little exception with the question. you put all entitlements in one place. there are budget issues even

was social security and medicare but i do not think those are the problem. they need to be adjusted but not thrown away. over 50% of seniors wrought property now is 10%. we chemicals adjustments. >>moderator: we will start with ursula rozum. with the affordable care act medicare as we know it will not survive beyond the next decade the you favor turning this over to private vouchers under the age of 55? or what would you do for medicare the line does not go through the roof? rozum: i support medicare for all but not the voucher program. health care should not the profit to then industry. we cannot be constrained by

the insurance bureaucracy. we need to stabilize cost 51 we have added nine years to the solvency from what it was. health care cost and needs to come down. we have to negotiate to lower cost for seniors. vouchers are the worst thing that every senior is $6,000 short of what they can afford now. it doesn't work under the ryan plan that does not balance the budget until 2014 and medicare is where you have money but there is no guarantee it could have been the level of coverage for the seniors ann marie buerkle -- . buerkle: there have been

distortions provided by dan maffei. it cuts medicare by seniors by $700 million. medicare has been changed of less weaver p.o. the affordable care act for other right-hand plan is not about sure but it is a need space program with bipartisan n support. the plan was as you become eligible for medicare you have choices and you can shop around the government can subsidize the support is needs based. review of our wealthy don't need that support that will help to save the system. you can choose within the ryan plan tuesday and current government run medicare.

this scare tactic is reprehensible. >>moderator: it would fall 700 million out of the program. paul ryan takes money at of medicare? >> he has to buy a lot that is the baseline. but what is different with the affordable care act a uses the $700 billion to fund entitlements and other parts of the affordable care act. bryan put the money back into the system to make it solvent so current seniors could count on that plan to be there for them. rozum: we hear back and forth shows how complicated and dysfunctional health care is right now. repealing the affordable care act we need to approve it. that is why i support

medicare for all where employees could offer health care not wearing about the bureaucracy of who profits. i oppose the affordable care act. maffei: in medicare and social security is a sacred trust. what ann marie buerkle says don't worry if you are over 55. there are cuts she supported i don't just medicare and social security to be solvent for over 55 but will third-generation as it has given bedrock support. >>moderator: to wrap up the health care i know where you stand but if the next congress should attempt to repeal the affordable care act would use support it? what parts of the law would

you change? >> there are several areas to make changes. part of the problem what i would not support it, it is not going to happen. we need to stand up to insurance companies. we cannot just put them out in the insurance market than say go fend for yourself. we do make sure people have coverage with pre-existing conditions in people don't face life time limits. not all the cancer patient but it cancer patient advocate. we avoid that. there are a number of things

i would change to help lower cost the we should not just repeal the move forward. buerkle: i am an ardent supporter of repealing the affordable care racked for in principle i disagree with ross 22 months i heard from upstate medical center fears bankruptcy. st. joseph's have to pay $3 million penalty. another has laid off 10% of the work force also 3.8 percent tax on passive been come. this fall was not bipartisan 12 thought out there is no reform. they put the government squarely in the middle of our health care decisions. talk about the cuts of medicare and the impact on our seniors the law needs to

be revised and repealed specially with preexisting conditions the doughnut hole for medicare is good those could be rolled into a new law. rozum: baidu support medicare for all but not repealing the affordable cataract. staying on your parents' insurance, they cannot drop to because of a pre-existing condition. i would work with progressive members around the country to pass the bill h.r. 676 to get the insurance companies out of the way and allow medicare to negotiate with drug companies. prices are too high because medicare cannot negotiate to bring down the cost of drugs.

of discussion and is indicative because of the affordable care act the plan was developed by republicans and they cannot agree on it. >>moderator: we are expecting something from congress with the fiscal cliff after election day with large automatic spending cuts. economist are pretty sure we will have another recession so what should be done to get another one in place? and why? >> house already voted a couple months ago with bipartisan support to extend the current tax rate for the next year. but there's so much uncertainty with businesses we don't know if the tax

rate so they hunker down and do not expand or higher. we have to deal with sequestration but they should be extended for one year. we should not raise them on any americans it will affect all americans and the economy that is so fragile it would be a mistake. the last congress knew that. obama's said don't raise taxes when the economy is fragile. we want to encourage them to help them grow. >>moderator: leave them in the next place station place for the next year and beyond? >> i would. with the bottom 90% of the newcomers with the marginal

tax rates those have done well i support the eisenhower rates we could raise 1.2 trillion dollars i am in favor spending those revenues to stimulate the economy. consumers are over indebted so they cannot produce of there is no customers. people need to go back to work and putting money in their pocket. >> a loss of cut the budget and close corporate tax loopholes and ending subsidies and the giveaways. maffei: i would not go back as far as eisenhower but i would look at clinton for some indication. we do need to share the sacrifice. we can protect small

businesses and farms with over $1 million that is not small businesses and farms but multimillionaire's and billionaires'. we can negotiate that. we need to replace jobs going overseas to get rid of the tax breaks for the oil companies. i can agree with what she says but ann marie buerkle voted to raise taxes on every working family in new york state. john boehner did not issue was the one member who voted to raise taxes on the middle class. >>moderator: another 30 seconds. buerkle: what dan maffei does is distort my record he

is not willing to take responsibility for his own record. one has to be responsible. he talks about over $1 million so many file a personal tax return to say it low desperately affect job creators they don't need to be taxed any further. >> guy support the eisenhower rates they could raise 1.2 trillion dollars. we are not hearing from ann marie buerkle 49 how they will cover the deficit. they don't to bring in any other revenue. what program will they cut? >> we do raise 81 percent of what the president was a

good raise a few cap at 1 million. the jt's the farms that pay '04 $1 million ann marie buerkle trying to protect her wealthy friends. the adl that i distort the record. >>moderator: reem will see what happens done tuesday. talk about simpson bowles the bipartisan commission studying this and great detail they came up with a plan to reduce it and simplify and lower tax rates across the board also limit deductions like the mortgage

interest deduction and health care deductions that we all enjoy. do support that part? lower the tax rates but get rid of the big deductions costing revenue? >> we need to keep the deductions like child-care, mortgage and health care deduction. do we want to to do a fairly or balances on the backs of the working people? running the cost-of-living estimate i retire and 40 years is a 12 percent cut and talk about increasing the medicare age. my opponent will stand up for the party's leadership talking about these kinds of cuts. >> we need to balance

the budget. simpson bowles has a lot of good suggestions. it was not meant to be legislation that maybe offering good guidance but as clinton did when he balanced the budget, look at that. clinton was here. we know the formula. is not that complicated. but to bring them back to the clinton rates. >> that is a lot of revenue. also to make sure we have economic growth with key investments of transportation and of the structure to make sure we have strong businesses in central york. we need a collective approach not all cuts can

cut our way out. >> i must smile because the nine new best friend is bill clinton was one of 38 members to voted for the budget to goods i thought it would be a good way to begin the discussion to get spending under control. they encourage us not to vote for to think what sit-down they have the white house and the senate and house and not have a budget -- budget to years. that is reprehensible and a dereliction of duty is. >>moderator: it seems the two major party candidates have wealthy friends. fec records have been shown

almost $5 million of the money into the district race has come from the super pac, outside groups. also your campaign from mayor bloomberg and others the 60 plus assn, league of conservatives it is going high. if the elected want to be beholden to the people and organizations that got you elected paying for those attack ads we have seen since labor day? >> i am answerable to the voters of the district. it is diverse and important any representative will represent all sides. but it is deplorable the money that comes into politics the citizens united that corporations are people

ann marie buerkle agrees but i disagree. we need a constitutional amendment to change that. i did sponsor that when he was an office. at least we know where this comes from. is not a good thing and the hardest on the candidates. buerkle: neville begin by saying i have concerns when bloomberg spend $600,000 on his race to tell upstate new york how to live their lives like down state. people contribute to campaigns whether individuals or the super pac, it is free speech i am

proud to have the u.s. chamber of commerce in doors the businesses. they are pro-growth of the growth of the growth they understand the affordable care act. this consistent with my principles. but to end dead distortion are once he has personally run. for what i intend to do i am proud of record. >> the green party refuses all corporate donations brighten not believe corporations are people. the problem existed before citizens united so that just aggravated the situation in. voters should be a rage the

amounts of money, not outside money to influence. but i also support citizens united believe need to abolish it with an amendment. corporations are not people they are not individuals with freedom of speech. all those people have their own vote. will also need to abolish reform. >>moderator: i would give you reach 30 seconds. want to be beholden if you are elected? maffei: no i will not. >>moderator: despite the many? maffei: i am beholden to the

voters of the district. that's it is the fact iowa's an office two years. people say you do this or that i did not do it. i voted the best i could. >>moderator: we get the phone calls from january. they will want something back? buerkle: my record speaks for itself i can represent this district to the best interest. dan maffei of voted for the affordable care act. my record is different i voted against fleet -- leadership on simpson bowles then those tax cuts would incur rich to make social security more solvent and that is an important vote to keep it viable for seniors. >> i am the only candidate in the race i will never

take money from military contractors, and goldman sachs over the years they have donated to both of my opponents. we want to be optimistic but the money does have an influence until we pass reform to get the people back the office will be corrupted. i hope whichever one of us gets into office work to get the money out of the system. >>moderator: we will take a quick break to make money ourselves. >>moderator: welcome back. talking to the candidates candidates, ann marie buerkle ms. ursula rozum went public from a family that gave her thousands of dollars also to your campaign and she said it is apparent it was given to me

to halt me get to focus away from the nine. are you aware of that? was that coordinated? >> certainly not. i became aware of it to win by a staff mentioned ursula rozum had a press conference. i had no way to know who would contribute. the concern should be bloomberg and investment he has made in the race $600,000. to push an agenda that is not consistent with the upstate values. >>moderator: when you made your announcement use said it is dirty money, you do the obvious implication in your opinion that a vote for ursula rozum is a vote for ann marie buerkle.

do you see yourself as this boiler? rozum: i give voters a choice. even though last couple answers mine are very different from the there candidate. our electoral system makes people go crazy a vote for a ursula rozum is about 4014. and makes people want to game the election by giving hundreds of thousands of dollars or a couple of thousand dollars. we need instead runoff voting to allow people to vote for the preferred candidate is that of helping their worst enemy. we need leadership and congress to change the antiquated election system. maffei: i do think ursula rozum did the right thing. we should look at electoral

reform. it should not be where a candidate can win the election without winning the majority. i support those things. i am for campaign finance reform. we do not need to attack any particular supporter but the money has to come out of politics. a lot of it goes on tv. it does run the television station my mother rented a house in geneva for a couple of months to not see those ads against her son. i am glad she is leaning towards dan maffei again. >>moderator: ursula rozum come a pretend you have the

money of the major party candidates and you wanted to produce a spot what would you spend the money on positively? rozum: outlining the green deal the plan to put people back to work meeting 21st century needs. after-school programs, reno but energy needs to be developed for independence. putting forward a positive vision to help communities. we know that voters and the tv watchers feel abused. >>moderator: to say get money at of politics but now take a couple of million. maffei: it is running right now. it talks about how to move the economy forward and stop

having the argument of the past. and how we focus on jobs. i do think we do that. but a view them apply we should never do and adcritic go of our opponents record i am not sure i agree. we should do both. there are things about ann marie buerkle record but have not been brought to light. countless women across the district including nancy green as a rape survivor came to me to told me about a bill that she co-sponsored that redefined rape with language and it. holding her accountable is part of the campaign. that is not negative if you talk about the record. buerkle: dan maffei sound to a new low in the campaign

and the people agree with me or not to would agree. he ran an ad that about his vision for his record but attack and distortion and distractions. that is reprehensible he hid behind the skirts of victims of rape. i am a mother of four daughters and four granddaughters. it is reprehensible he would use and storage for that bill was about federal funding for abortion except rape or incest or life of the mother. there risk no forcible language. it is reprehensible third we have heard from women who have had to listen and relive their experience.

that is already candidate will do anything to be reelected. >>moderator: is it an issue people take into account? maffei: absolutely she helped me accountable for every word of every bill. it is a three page bill. it was about abortion and ann marie buerkle does not want federal money for abortion. even with rape and incest. it parsed rape to not be covered with date rape. you don't parse rape for any reason. that is why it is an important part of her record. not her motivation or background. >>moderator: the original language . >> it is the creme ♪

♪ used for years it was taken out and modernized and was voted on it said rape is rape is rape it is so offensive to me and other women that dan maffei would act like he knows more about this issue, 11, there struggles. it would be laughable if it was said to the detriment of 70 women. we have taken a strong position. >>moderator: you can comment force a better time. rozum: i am glad i am here to separate the two of them. >>moderator: dan maffei we love the debates let me characterize them negative adds that you are the outsider the district fired

do why should they hired you back and your policies are out of step. take a minute to give me a 62nd response to the attacks on new. it is free time. maffei: you just repeated by opponents add. born and raised in the district and i work here at chat -- jeht channel nine in the capital management i also work firm daniel patrick moynihan but when i was growing up work the my grandparents plant it taught me to see the struggle of central york. i live the american dream i

also believe ann marie buerkle and ursula rozum did. but we have to make sure everybody does. >>moderator: ann marie buerkle day advertisements say you are far far right, extreme, off the spectrum not with what most of the 24 diss strict feels the only came in on the midterm wave now it is time to usher out the anomaly that you are too extreme. buerkle: that is said narrative of dan maffei and the narrative democrats are putting across the country to marginalize the record to say the we are too extreme that he is the moderate. said jim walsh said the record is clear.

is a real and liberal of spending and taxing i voted against leadership and simpson bowles because i have spent the last 22 months talking to hundreds of people, 40 plus taj mahal meetings, farmers, positions meetings, farmers, positions , we have done incredible amounts of conversations and getting to the issues. that is why i am in touch. dan maffei came back after being gone many years to challenge jim walsh. >>moderator: you have not been the subject of these attack ads you have a positive message to get out i will give you another 60 seconds of an issue of your choosing. rozum: unborn and raised

here is syracuse my parents are from call-in activity anti-communist union thinking if you work hard you can create a good life. that is not the case anymore. our word greed that new deal is investment to put people back to work to address unmet community needs updating our 100 year-old sewers comment to have real energy independence, i support to put money in working people's pockets. my opponents represent the worst of both of their party's we do have positive part whether the commitment to veterans alert from what legislation dan maffei sponsored. >>moderator: the wake of

the hurricane people in the tri-state area are not eager to see how high the storm surge would be over time. or you can fans climate change and global warming is real? day believe it is caused by human activity? what should the federal government will be to reverse it? >>moderator: tae -- . buerkle: i am on record to say it is real but i am not sure man's role to create climate change. the reasonable approach is rather than taking all we worry about the climate and cap-and-trade the balance of

the interest. if you have a nasa scientist criticizing nasa saying climate change not to take an adequate role we have to have reasonable approach to have to balance interest. energy need, environmental need, there's a lot of issues. we cannot be radical but balance those interests. rozum: what is radical end of unreasonable is the name of the human impact on the crisis. it is very scary what ann marie buerkle is saying. i don't know of any evidence could convince hershey has ben bought off by people like exxon and a think tank that deny climate science. mania decline action policy to stop wasting energy there

are three or four times as many jobs than the renewable energy sector for equal the investment. like retrofitting homes. the climate action and policy is a win for the economy and the environment we cannot bury our heads in the sand like ann marie buerkle has decided to do. maffei: listening to governor cuomo talking about these whether you fax we have to do whatever we can. i believe they are man-made pro i spent when you're teaching at the college of environmental forestry and the president believes and climate change. the former radiologists year does also. it is clear.

we need to do something about this. we had a huge storm. some of the ways that ursula rozum is talking about is why is. this is not have to be an economic downturn. summer making 95% steel from recycled steel. it is responsible. >>moderator: what could come under the federal the grass with natural-gas and shale called hydro-fracking we're under a moratorium right now. should this remain the state issue or fall under the federal clean water act? would you support that making a national issue?

>> i would support it. we need to follow the example set by france and bulgaria with water and air and climate change we don't know the boundaries. i do support a federal ban. we hear from both major presidential candidates that both promote drilling for natural gas all the dan maffei is personally opposed for a hydro-fracking i asked them to join me we need to stop the unconventional fossil fuel extraction mountaintop removal, or 86 we cannot afford these accidents. they are expensive and hurt the climate i support banding hydro-fracking nationally. maffei: read do need to put

under the clean water act. watershed still stock that state lines. we clearly need national regulation. or a moratorium. i am concerned about the unintended consequences because cold does more environmental damage than any of the resource. we need to approach this in a collaborative way. we need to do it in a way to balance out the energy needs of the industry but make sure reduce something on the environmental side. we need to work together. compromise is necessary but let's move forward not put our head in the sand.

>>moderator: ed much of new york depends on agriculture. -- i am so sorry per you get one minute nine hydro-fracking. buerkle: talk about education or agriculture or the ban on hydro-fracking of the federal government involved, it is more expensive and frustrates the local people. i think it will remove the choice. i think a moratorium is a radical approach and not reasonable. dan maffei and ursula rozum are opposed to hydro-fracking, a nuclear power but grenoble's only create 2% of electricity. we cannot make that change in past to be planning.

with this stimulus a lot of money went into solar panels of bankrupt companies, jobs created in china. what we do to preserve the environment pass to be reasonable. >>moderator: we will go round again. rozum: there is nothing unreasonable to wait and steady but the future of our agriculture and water are at risk. ann marie buerkle says righetti%. no. it is 14%. that the u.s. department of energy website they are getting cheaper by the day. and conventional fossil fuels will be more expensive because they are riskier and cause accidents. >>moderator: back to the farm. there will be and a tough

position and. the old satan it is not working. what should the nufarm bill include? what should be in it when we have a new legislation and? >> i support the senate negotiated farm bill. as a necessary eight insurance programs to survive in a global workplace. we need to move forward. i agree with our main whether organic farms or winery is becoming the end up the valley of the northeast -- napa valley of the northeast we need to protect our water. it is unfortunate a very small but vibrant tea party faction has blocked

everything including the farm bill. buerkle: and the talking points with the tea party faction and it has not then brought up in the house. talk about a three month extension to give virus certainty. there was the discussion of getting the food assistance program out to look at the farmers' these big bills have competing interest and it makes it difficult to accomplish what needs to be done. the economy is the significantly impacted, we have to do what we can. it will help the agricultural community it will allow farmers to grow.

we work closely with farms we have to do it carefully and balancing the interest. >> i support a farm bill that includes finding. we need a farm bill that supports organic and regional farming not to get crops that rely of pesticides with soymeal erosion end or contaminating the bader. is the biggest industry we need to maintain the hydro-fracking band in central new york or all of new york. with free trade agreements we need of food the system that allows local farmers to feed local people. levy into an influx of

immigrants in the u.s. may have to rely on exports when not feeding the committee. >>moderator: we need to go to closing statements. we will ask for all three candidates for a direct shot and we will start with ann marie buerkle. buerkle: thank you. two years ago ran for progress because i believe the york lost its voice after town hall units and hundreds of conversations my instincts were correct upstate did lose its voice. dan maffei was then congress for two years but does not

want to be responsible for his record of liberal spending for upstate new york need someone who has the courage to do what they will say. they need someone who is a accessible to be there voice in washington not playing cat and mouse. i am from here i love upstate new york. it is my home i ask for your support and for your vote on november 6th. >>moderator: you have 60 seconds. maffei: i a.m. very pleased and i appreciate channel nine to sponsor us. it matters to central new york born and raised here without public schools i

would be nobody. my did learn a lot eyewitness of struggle nobody is perfect but the 14x like i and the incantation come back. we're all very concerned about jobs in central new york but two years later we don't see any action. it doesn't make any sense. balance the budget toward do it the right way to make the economy grow. >>moderator: that you now have 60 seconds to conclude our program. rozum: thank you for the opportunity to articulate to our community.

we cannot be focused on what we don't want to i supported vouchers to put people to work on the medicare for all. provide health care as a human rights. i support a climate action plan they can revive the economy i promise to be an independent voice then congress. is time to take care coverage back to make the rich pay their fair share. i hope i can have your vote on november 6. >>moderator: of three candidates they do for supporting our candidates ann marie buerkle, dan maffei and ursula rozum you can decide if they answer

the question this your call if it is then line of what you've like to see. the choice is yours. if you are registered it is your civic responsibility. it will be close. the vote will matter and you have the duty to exercise your right if you live in a 24 congressional district. on behalf of everybody at channel nine make sure you get out to vote on tuesday. enjoy the rest of your weekend. ♪ >> thed